While touring the nuclear bunker of former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito, Pollock couldn’t resist picking up a bright orange “bat phone” and tossing up his horns for a picture. But the security officers on the tour weren’t so pleased: “Little did I know the phone was still live,” Pollock says. “All I said was the local time and hook ‘em horns!”

Pollock recently retired after 25 years of military service. During his 2006 Bosnia & Herzegovina assignment, he was working at NATO headquarters in Sarajevo.